


The Day After

by windsroad



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-10
Updated: 2017-10-10
Packaged: 2019-01-15 12:51:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12321441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/windsroad/pseuds/windsroad
Summary: (Spoilers for episode 114)The day after the fight with Vecna.Technically Vax isn't in this, but it's definitely about him, so please excuse the tag.





	The Day After

The day after, Taryon was ecstatic to see Vox Machina approach from the Sun Tree in Whitestone. He’d refused to leave until he saw them all back safe. He left Vex’s house and sprinted for them, Doty 2.5 lumbering slowly behind.

Their clothing was tattered and dirty, their faces downcast. Why weren’t they more excited? Hadn’t they won the fight? Quickly realizing something was wrong, Tary counted heads. One-two-three-four-five-six-seven. Seven?

“Where’s Vax?” he asked, panic-stricken, afraid to hear the answer.

They explained. Vax was not coming back.

Taryon pulled them all into one big hug, and he did not let them go.

 

The day after, Grog drank a lot of ale.

After arriving in Whitestone and speaking with Tary, they had tried to celebrate their win, but no one much felt like celebrating. They went their separate ways—things to plan and people to talk to.

Grog sat himself in an empty tavern, took a swig of sandkeg first to get started out right, then out came the cask. He was waiting, biding his time, until Pike was able to join him.

“Fix him,” Grog wanted to say, but he knew there was no fixing him now. There was no fixing any of them. They would have to take the long, slow road of recovery. They would all get through this together in time.

Grog held on to hope for his family, and he did not let it go.

 

The day after, Pike was busy. She had to bring Velora back and contact her parents to let them know what happened. Now Pike had to arrange a ceremony. There was no cleric or paladin of the proper goddess present in Whitestone, not now, not anymore. But she wanted this to be done right, not just for Vax, but for all of them.

Pike knew she often had to be the rock of the group, but being the rock was hard. Especially when it felt like your own heart had been shattered into millions of infinitesimally small pieces.

When Pike was done, she went to the empty tavern to meet Grog. They held each other, and did not let each other go.

 

The day after, Percival did everything he could so that Keyleth and Vex would have to do nothing. Keeping busy helped him. He helped Pike prepare for the ceremony—searching the library to see if there were records of what such a ceremony under the Raven Queen should look like. He arrange people and things so everything would go smoothly.

When Cassandra arrived from Emon, he sat with her and explained everything. Where she had been, what happened to her.

“Is everyone alright?” she asked.

Percy was quiet. “No,” he said finally.

Eventually everything was finished and there was nothing left for Percy to distract himself with. He had done all that needed doing and spoken with all the people that needed to be spoken with. So he went to his wife, held her tightly, and did not let her go.

 

The day after, Scanlan climbed the tower where Vax had once been attacked by not-Gilmore over a year ago and hid himself away.

Scanlan told himself he had done what he’d needed to do to save everyone, but the words didn’t reach his heart. He felt a failure. He had one thing he had wanted to do, one thing he needed to accomplish, one thing he had been planning for days, and he’d been unable to do it. He wished he could have… but that was just the thing, wasn’t it?

He couldn’t look any of them in the eye.

When Kaylie arrived from Emon, she climbed the tower after her father and found him watching the view. The sight of her brought fresh tears to Scanlan’s eyes, and he held her and did not let her go.

 

The day after, Keyleth felt like a shell. She had known it was coming, but it didn’t hurt any less. She would always love Vax, and that would always sting.

Pike, Grog, and Tary had tried to comfort her, but Keyleth… she didn’t want to hear it. She wanted to be alone. It was a sentiment that was going around. Scanlan scurried away as soon as he could. After Vex’ahlia spoke with her sister, she released Trinket from her necklace and retreated to the castle. Percy fled to talk to people about this or that almost as soon as they arrived.

Pike and Percy were arranging everything for the ceremony, but there wasn’t even a body for them to bury. The Raven Queen had taken him body and soul, his duty to her done and his time up. They were burying his armor and weapons in lieu of a body.

Keyleth requested just two feathers from the Raven Queen’s armor. She held them close to her breast and did not let them go.

 

The day after, Vex’ahlia tried her best to explain to Velora what had happened to her.

She found it harder to explain what happened to Vax. How did you explain that yes, Vax had been there; no, he had not been badly hurt in the battle; but no, he _still_ would not be coming back? How did she explain to Velora that her big, strong older brother was gone? How did Vex explain it to herself?

But now that Syldor and Devana had arrived to take care of Velora, Vex cast speak with animals and sat with Trinket.

They talked about what had happened after Trinket had left the battle. She reminisced about her brother and all of his pranks, his dramatic moments, his dumb moves.

Vex dug her face into Trinket’s fur. “I miss him so much already, Trinket,” she said, voice muffled and face wet.

Trinket nudged Vex and licked her face as he always had Vax. In his own way, he talked about his uncle tying his fur in bows, the snacks his uncle gave him, and the licks he gave his uncle.

Vex’ahlia was sad, but she held her brother in her heart, and she did not let him go.

 


End file.
